A NOVELIST TURNED SHOEMAKER.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1757, 11 June 1886, Page 6

A NOVELIST TURNED SHOEMAKER.

Count Leon Tolstoi (cousin of the statesman), the celebrated Russian novelist and mystic, whose work, "My Religion," has lately been translated in to English, and whose "Peace and War' and " Anna Karenine " are having so great a vogue in France, has, it is said, renounced literature for religion, and intends henceforth to devote himself entirely to works of practical piety, and to carrying out in their integrity the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. He has decided to sell all he has, and give it to the poor, and literally fro gain'his bread by the sweat of his brow. He believes that salvation is to be found only in physical labour, and he is at present occupying himself with shoemaking. Thinking it is his duty to give those about him the least possible trouble the Count makes his own bed and cleans his own room, and, in order to spare the washerwomen, changes his linen as seldom as possible. Everything which the poor do not enjoy in common with the rich he regards reprehensible luxuries the pursuit of literature he regards as a vain thing, and the reputation his works have won him he values no more than the applause bestowed on a comedian or a ballet dancer. The Count has nine children, the eldest of whom has just finished his course at college. When the young man asked his father a little while ago what profession he would like him to take up, the answer he received was "Go and sweep snow; all my children must earn their own livelihood, I shall give all my fortune to the poor."